About backups

Backups let you restore your Memorystore for Valkey instances to a specific point in time. In addition, you can use backups to export and analyze data.

Backups are useful for the following scenarios:

  • Disaster recovery: use backups as part of a disaster recovery plan. If a disaster occurs, then you can restore your data to a new Memorystore for Valkey instance.

  • Data migration: migrate data between different Memorystore for Valkey instances. You can consolidate data or move it to a different region. You can also restore backups from Memorystore for Valkey instances.

  • Data sharing: share data between different teams or applications, enabling collaboration, offline data analytics, and data exchange.

  • Compliance: create periodic backups of cache data for compliance purposes.

Backups and backup collections

A backup is a point-in-time snapshot of your data. Backups are organized into backup collections. A backup collection includes all backups for a Memorystore for Valkey instance. If you delete an instance, then Memorystore for Valkey doesn't delete the corresponding backup collection automatically.

You can set a time to live (TTL) for a backup by setting a retention period. After the backup exceeds its TTL, Memorystore for Valkey deletes the backup automatically.

To recover data in a backup, you can create an instance and seed the instance with data from the backup. However, you can't import data into an existing instance.

Automated and on-demand backups

You can create backups in the following ways:

  • Automated backups (Recommended): configure a backup schedule for an instance. As a result, Memorystore for Valkey initiates periodic backups for the instance.

  • On-demand backups: initiate a backup operation that begins immediately.

For more information about setting an automated backup schedule or initiating a backup, see Manage backups.

Costs

Based on the size of a backup and the region where the backup is located, you're charged storage costs for the backup. For each backup, there's a minimum 24-hour charge. For more information, see Memorystore for Valkey pricing.